


No longer on his own

by EleenaDume



Series: In Between the Stars [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Cross-Posted on Wattpad, Crying, Ezra Bridger Needs a Hug, Ezra-centric, Found Family, Gen, Inferiority Complex, Oneshot, Star Wars Rebels: Spark of Rebellion, Struggling, uncertainties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:08:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23687410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EleenaDume/pseuds/EleenaDume
Summary: Ezra was sick and tired of being left behind.If he managed to escape from this cell, he swore to himself, he’d fight for himself, and only himself, for as long as he lived. He was done trusting people.But the force had other plans, as none of the concepts that played out in Ezra’s mind allowed for the crew to come back and get him.Part of a long series of rebels stories that will be published once I manage to actually get some translating done, but can be read separately.
Series: In Between the Stars [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1709959
Comments: 1
Kudos: 37





	No longer on his own

“They’re not gonna come back for me. People don’t do that.”

Ezra was beyond frustrated. For years, he’d done nothing but to fight for himself, never letting anyone get close to him. 

That’s what he got for breaking his routine and doing dumb heroic stuff to save people he barely knew.

»If all you do is fight for your own life, then your life is worth nothing.«

The twi’lek’s words from earlier kept running circles in his mind, never leaving his mind entirely for as much as a moment.

“Thanks for the advice,” he mumbled sarcastically. “My life is worth so much as of right now.”

He didn’t even hold it against them that they left him behind, if he was being honest. 

It was his own fault for being foolish enough to help them. 

In a situation like this, nobody would have been crazy enough to come back for him.

Actually... nobody had ever been stupid enough to come back for him.

Ezra should’ve been used to it by now. 

Maybe he was just one of these people others loved to leave behind to never return. His parents had disappeared, and ever since, any friend he had made over the past years had disappeared from his life one way or another... some had vanished entirely, some had moved, some had died. 

Every time he was just about ready to feel comfortable around someone – to maybe share his own fears with them and imagine a future with them in it –, they had disappeared from his life entirely, leaving him to sink back into his lonely misery.

He’d never been able to rely on anyone but himself ever since he’d lost his parents.

Without wanting them to, the blue-haired boy’s eyes started welling up with tears.

He’d tried so hard to swallow the losses and memories, to lock them up in his heart... whenever they came back to the surface, and they always did, sooner or later, they caused him pain again, despite the fact that some of these wounds should have scabbed and healed years ago.

He led himself to believe that he could live with it... with being alone and with always losing whoever he got close to.

With being proven time and again that he was worth nothing... that he wasn’t good enough for someone to want to keep him around. But he was tired of it now.

He used his sleeve to wipe his tears away.

He’d had enough.

In the short fourteen years of his life, he’d already lived through more than enough pain for an entire lifetime... and now he would do everything in his power to make sure that it wouldn’t go any further than this.

He was done trusting people. He was done being naive enough to make the same mistake over and over again.

He was sick and tired of it. 

Not just of the pain being left behind constantly caused him, but also of the pain from hopelessly trying to catch up. 

He didn’t need to prove to anyone that his life was worth living. That he was worth of being loved and appreciated. 

He‘d just stay on his own. 

That way, no one could hurt him ever again.

If he wasn’t important to anyone and no one needed him, fine then. 

He didn’t need anyone either. 

He’d get himself out of this mess just like he’d done with any other. That part wasn’t a problem.

And after that? Would he just go back to Lothal?

The moment that though crossed his mind, Ezra wasn’t even sure if that was what he really wanted.

There were many awfully painful memories that awaited him back there... but in the end, the world was his home. It had always been his home. And it wasn’t like he’d known of any other place to go if he’d really left.

There was no way of knowing if the world he ended up on was better or worse than his home world. 

He had a place to stay back on Lothal, but would he have one in the place he’d end up in if he left? 

And what if the empire kept an even tighter grip on the other planet than if did on Lothal?

The teenage boy slumped against the wall of his holding cell, all hope seeming lost for a moment. 

If he was being honest, he had no idea what he would do if he managed to escape. There was no deeper meaning to his life. He just lived every day hoping to live to see the next one. That was all there was to it, he wasn’t happy that way, there was no denying that. 

The only thing that kept him from breaking down was that he had no time to think about things like that.

That was what made his stay in the holding cell so horrible. He could have just thought about a way to escape... but with that came the pressing question of why he would even want that. He didn’t have a life that was worth going back to.

Once again, he started sobbing softly.

No matter how strong he pretended to be... In the end, he was nothing but a fourteen-year-old boy that more often than not felt lost in the huge galaxy, but had no one to run to for advice.

He sighed and put the floating cube in front of him away again. This wasn’t the right time to dwell on self-doubts, he decided. 

These strangers had no right to hurt him again, and he actually didn’t even know them well enough to be genuinely hurt by their actions.

There was no ill will intended after all.

They just weren’t completely bonkers. Nobody would have been stupid enough to willingly fly into a star destroyer to rescue someone.

Hell, he himself wouldn’t have done it, so he couldn’t exactly hold it against them that they had enough common sense to not do it, either... no matter how much it hurt.

He wiped his tears away.

He wouldn’t waste another precious second thinking about the crew. They were now just another part of the past he wanted to forget about.

He would flee, and then... everything else he could figure out when he had left this place – although he had no idea how he would pull that one off, with barely enough piloting skills to drive a speeder.

It was now first and foremost time to test how stupid these stormtroopers actually were.

If things had gone the way Ezra thought they would, his life would have gone entirely different. He would have returned to Lothal, and maybe, someday, started working for the Empire because of a lack of credits and food. 

He definitely would have lived a much quieter life than the one the force had in store for him.

Because whatever his plan for the aftermath would have been... it didn’t involve the crew of the Ghost coming back to get him.

He couldn’t believe it. He’d actually been important enough to someone for them to come back for him. He hadn’t been this happy in a long time.

“Welcome back on board, Ezra.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much. I can’t believe you came back for me.”

There was a part of him that wanted to hug every single one of them, but thankfully he was quick enough to remember that he still barely knew any of them, he should definitely be more wary and that doing so would have been incredibly weird. Instead, he enthusiastically decided to tell them what he had just learned about the Wookiees. 

These people had given him a chance. In return, he should give them the chance to reach the goal they had wanted to reach before the Empire had lured them into a trap.

The Ezra that had started off this day probably would have considered what he had done throughout that same day completely crazy. That he had recklessly risked his life for a Wookiee-child he didn’t even know and was now seriously considering a group of what was basically complete strangers.

»You don’t want to get hurt again, do you? In the end, they will only disappoint you. You should leave,« he told himself as he left the ship.

But then, Kanan came after him. And this time, the hurt little boy inside him that wanted, much more than to learn about his special abilities, to have a family again – although he didn’t admit that out loud –, won. It had been nice to not be on his own for a while, and he liked scoring off the empire a lot. 

That left few valid arguments for him to not agree to the offer.

If things went wrong, he could still return to his old home and do whatever he had thought of doing by then – but for now, he’d enjoy his time with the crew, get to know them all better and be happy that he hadn’t been left behind again,

More than anything, he hoped he would never be left behind again.

His journey with the crew would be long and would put him through several hardships, changing him forever... but he was no longer on his own, and that wasn’t going to change again anytime soon.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> This short story was written a while ago after a rewatch of Spark of Rebellion.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it, feedback would be much appreciated!


End file.
